


The Tale of Mr P. Tiggy-Winkle

by kin_you_bi (dancink)



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Beatrix Potter - Freeform, Crack, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, I said it was crack, Utter utter crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-27
Updated: 2010-01-27
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:37:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancink/pseuds/kin_you_bi
Summary: (with apologies to Beatrix Potter).





	The Tale of Mr P. Tiggy-Winkle

Once upon a time there was a boy named Pete, who lived in a town called Chicago. He was a good little boy - or man, rather, since that’s what he was, even if he didn’t always act like it - only he was always losing his hoodies.  
  
One day little Pete came out from his bedroom and into the kitchen of his apartment crying - oh, did he cry so! “I’ve lost my hoodies! Three hoodies and a pair of jeans! Have you seen them, Hemmy?”  
  
Hemmy looked at him balefully, and then farted, so Pete went next door and asked his neighbor, Joe. “Joe Henny-penny, have you seen my hoodies?”  
  
But Joe just shuffled on the carpet and sang “I go barefoot, barefoot, barefoot!” Which was typical, as Joe was always stoned.  
  
So then Pete went downstairs, and asked Cock Brendon, who was perched at the top of the stairs leading up to their building.  
  
Cock Brendon looked sideways at Pete with one bright, shining eye, then disappeared off down the street and away.  
  
Pete went down the stairs and looked down the street, past the buildings and the street lights and down - down to the river, and to the park that hugged it.  
  
And down there, in the park he thought he could just make out some bright things spread upon the grass.  
  
Pete scrambled down the street as fast as his short legs could take him, past the buildings and the street lights - and once, past a taxi that honked his horn and cursed as he dashed across the street without looking both directions - and presently he came to the park, and to the great fountain that sat in the middle.  
  
Someone had stood a bucket in the fountain to catch the water - but the water had already overflowed it, for the bucket was from a child’s beach set. And on the paving surrounding the fountain there were wet footprints - the footprints of a very small person.  
  
Pete ran on.  
  
Then, just before the park ended and the road that edged the river began, Pete found clothes-lines - made from sticks and twigs and what looked like recycled fishing line, with varying items of clothing pinned to it with tiny clothes pins. But no hoodies.  
  
But there was something else - a rough path, leading up into a garden bed and behind some large shrubbery, and in there, somewhere, someone was singing -   
  
_“I am a clothes washer,  
Washing clothes with soap and bleach and wool wash  
And I don’t really care what grime this is  
As long as the clothes are dirty  
That’s just the business I’m in, yeah!”_  
  
Pete didn’t bother with the niceties - he just shouldered his way past the bushes and interrupted the song. From deeper in the shrubbery a little frightened voice called out, “Who’s there?”  
  
Pete parted the bushes and peered down, and what do you think was there? A small green canvas tent, with it’s door flap pinned open, and inside, there was a portable generator and a campers gas stove and a bed roll, just like any tent. Only the tent was tiny, so tiny that Pete’s head touched the roof when he crouched down, and everything was in tiny, child-sized proportions.   
  
There was the smell of laundry detergent and steaming hot fabric, and standing at the tiny ironing board with a half-sized travel iron in his hand was a very short and stout person staring up anxiously at Pete.  
  
His Bowie tee was old and worn-through at the collar, and he was wearing an apron over it. His little black nose sniffed cautiously and his eyes were narrowed and underneath his trucker hat he had prickles.  
  
“Who are you?” said Pete. “No, wait, more importantly. Have you seen my hoodies?”  
  
The little person glared. “My name is Mr. P. Tiggly-winkle, and if you please, I have laundry to do.” And he took something out of a clothes basket and spread it on the ironing board.  
  
“You don’t have to be rude about it, dude,” said Pete. “Hey, is that my hoodie?”  
  
“No,” Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle said, “Does it even look like a hoodie? It doesn’t even have sleeves.” He continued to iron the garment (which, incidentally, was a small scarlet waist-coat belonging to Cock Brendon) until it was crease-free, then he folded it carefully and put it to the side.  
  
Then he took something else out of the clothes basket -   
  
“Hey, is that my jeans?”  
  
“Are you blind?”  
  
“Like I’ve done laundry before.”  
  
Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle snorted. “Apparently not, otherwise you’d totally be able to tell the difference between a pair of jeans and a damask table-cloth.” He tutted to himself as he examined the badly-stained fabric. “Damn Z Wren and her red wine.” Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle’s sniffed disapprovingly as he dumped the cloth onto the soaking pile.  
  
“Hey! There’s one of my hoodies!” Pete said, as he riffled through the clothes basket. “And my jeans!”  
  
Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle grabbed the hoodie from him. “You can keep the jeans - normally I’d iron them, but something tells me that’d be rather pointless. This hoodie does need mending, however,” he added, fingering the matching holes inexpertly cut into the cuffs of the sleeves.  
  
“No!” Pete yelped, snatching the hoodie back. “They’re for my thumbs!”  
  
Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle just stared at him.  
  
“You have no room to talk, you’re wearing a trucker hat,” Pete argued. “And your tee looks like it’s about to fall apart at any minute.”   
  
“It’s _vintag_ _e_ ,” Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle countered.   
  
Pete was riffling through the clothes basket again, pulling out a pair of long yellow toe socks. “Who do these belong to?”  
  
“Those,” the launderer snapped, “belong to Joe Henny-Penny, and if he doesn’t stop shuffling about in them he’s going to wear them right through.”   
  
“What about this?” asked Pete, brandishing a red kerchief.   
  
“That belongs to Ryan Rabbit, and it absolutely reeked patchouli. He must have been hanging out at Jon Kitten’s again. I had to wash it and Jon’s mittens separately, I can’t get out the smell.”  
  
Pete wasn’t even listening. Instead he emptied the basket onto the canvas-covered tent floor and sorted through it. “My hoodies!” he crowed, having found his other two missing items of clothing. “And they’re even clean!” He grinned happily. “Thanks, Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle.”  
  
Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle sighed, looking at all the clothes now strewn across his tent floor. “You’re worse than a _two-year-old_ , you know that? And it’s Patrick.”  
  
Pete looked about. “I guess I did kind of make a mess,” he agreed. “I _guess_ can clean it all again.”  
  
“It’s ok” Mr. P. Tiggy-winkle - Patrick - answered grudgingly. “I just swept the floor so it’ll all still be mostly clean. You can help me iron and fold, though.”  
  
“I really wasn’t joking about the never having done laundry thing, dude.”  
  
“Fine, I’ll _teach_ you how to iron and fold. You are capable of following simple instructions, right?"  
  
Pete looked at the little man - was he a man? Those prickles poking out from under the trucker hat kinda indicated something else entirely - and smiled. "Patrick, dude, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."  
  
"Whatever," Patrick muttered, blushing. "Hand me that purple jacket."

**Author's Note:**

> ...Yeah. I got nothin’.
> 
> (Originally posted at my dreamwidth here


End file.
